MO3351 Doing and Practicing Transnational and Global History

Though there isn’t a set topic or required readings for this week, I have been thinking on the previous discussions and how I would apply this to my own interests and potential project proposals. I have found the prospect daunting for many of the reasons discussed in previous weeks readings. The potential to “bite off more than I can chew” with a broad topic or becoming so locked in with a theme that it loses relevance in the broader picture. last week’s contrasting between micro and macro history and the respective problems therein have inspired me somewhat to pursue a larger topic.

Particularly of interest the Linden reading on Labour History encourages me to think that it is possible to explore a large topic, in my case I am considering doing the history of freedom to information, in the form of encyclopaedias, Wikipedia, museums etc. My question remains on how to do this, and where to draw the parameters. Is it so broad that it is too ambitious to fit into 4000 words, even once condensed to a few key features? Would the focus on encyclopaedias be too Eurocentric? The element of selection in methodology and indeed topic itself is still a persisting challenge.

Andrade’s biographical approach was indeed a fascinating and enjoyable read and would provide a much-needed context to intention behind resources and ideas – eg the individuals who write Wikipedia articles and what motivates them. There is a series of interviews with a man behind thousands (mainly biographical articles ironically) who speaks about his mother living in Soviet Russia and what it meant to her to be able to access information without restriction.

I would deem this as transnational/global history, just given the nature of information and books and often the intention behind them. There is an example I learned of in my course last semester of a library on Minecraft that was made to help people in nations with heavy censorship access restricted and banned information and books. I think these examples build a fascinating image of access to knowledge and information especially beyond the nation, which often as a system seeks to limit it. The nation would still exist in the research, but insofar as the topic itself is not restricted to the barriers.  

Or perhaps a better approach would be to take one thing and explore the full reaches of that, much like Linden’s analogy of the tree branches spreading throughout history. For example, following the path of the encyclopaedia, both as concept and development throughout time. This would show the intentions behind it in both its origin, construction and continuation.

There will always be a concern that something important or interesting is being overlooked in any mode of exploration or methodology, but from the reading and discussion thus far it would appear that that is a side effect of transnational history and indeed what makes it so worthwhile. There is always another avenue to explore and another connection to be drawn.

Approaching my final project has been a daunting task, I now know that I want to look at some aspect of transnational surrogacy, however finding an appropriate entry point into this topic is proving difficult. There are so many different possible approaches. A feminist orientation, which views transnational reproduction as a form of reproductive labor, would allow me to examine the gender relations which underpin this phenomenon. While a post-colonial outlook might better capture the global and racialized inequalities, the enduring legacy of imperialism, which serve to justify transnational surrogacy and the commodification of human beings. A micro-historical approach would allow me to look more closely at the impact these global processes have on specific places and people. On the other hand, by examining the legal and institutional frameworks in which these processes operate, I may be in a better position to trace the connections that exist between different sites of transnational surrogacy. These are just a few of the many thoughts running through my head. 

In my preliminary research, I have looked at Daisy Deomampo’s Transnational Reproduction: Race, Kinship, and Commercial Surrogacy in India, and will use this text as a jumping off point for further study. Based on extensive field work and interviews of a diverse set of agents involved in the process of transnational gestational surrogacy in India, Deomampo examines transnational reproduction as a social formation which reinforces stratification. She looks at the racial reproductive imaginaries which prop up the unequal relations that characterize transnational surrogacy. Deomampo opens her book with anecdotes from her field work, her comments on a middle eastern entrepreneur whose company facilities surrogacy arrangements frame transnational surrogacy as a practice which benefits both surrogate and intended parents, however she quickly turns this assertion on its head by analyzing the aspects of transnational surrogacy which construct surrogates as racial Others who have inherently high risk pregnancies. Deomampo does a particularly good job of describing the transnational orientation of the global phenomenon of surrogacy. She describes meeting South African women who travelled to India to donate their eggs, these eggs would most likely then be placed in the uteruses of Indian women, who would deliver these babies for parents who most of the time hailed from countries located in the global north. Deomampo highlights the global connections which link disperate people all over the world, and has shown me how well suited this topic is for a transnational approach. 

Another source I found incredibly interesting was an article written by Emma Lamberton, “Lessons from Ukraine: Shifting International Surrogacy Policy to Protect Women and Children.” Written a few years after Deomampo’s book, Lamberton’s piece is a reaction to the rise in surrogacy in Ukraine following its banning in India, Thailand and Nepal due to human rights violations. She notes that the Ukraine holds over a quarter of the global surrogacy market, most of which is facilitated through a private, for-profit company called Biotexcom. This company has been able to escape governmental oversight due to the technicality that the company is not registered in Ukraine. Unencumbered by humans rights or legal considerations, this company has taken advantage of the six billion US dollar market of reproductive labor. Lamberton calls for policy implementation based on the Hague Conference’s Experts’ Group on the Parentage/Surrogacy Project in order to safeguard prospective parents, children, and their surrogate mothers. She notes that children born from surrogacy are not recognized as citizens of their birth country, which means that they are not eligible for adoption. In cases where prospective parents abandon their children created through surrogacy, often because they have disabilities, these children are essentially state-less by law and located in countries which oftentimes do not have the resources to cope with their disabilities. I am just beginning to wrap my head around this, but I am sure of one thing, this is an incredibly upsetting realisation. How is it possible that the international community has not done something to restore the rights of citizenship for these newborns? 

Highlighting two very different aspects of the phenomenon of transnational surrogacy, these two contributions have allowed me to consider the impacts of transnational surrogacy at the individual level as well as the societal level. Although I am still not sure exactly in what direction my project will go, after examining these sources and a few others, I am very excited to see where it takes me!

As we enter Week 5, I feel that I am slowly beginning to grasp the idea of producing a ‘transnational history’ of my own volition. The two sources that have been most useful in coming to grips with transnational history are definitely Saunier’s Transnational History and the ‘AHR Conversation: On Transnational History’ in the American Historical Review. The main appeal of transnational history is that it opens up broader analytical possibilities than global history in understanding complex linkages, networks and actors – something that I want to replicate fully in my own project.

As a result of the fact that transnational history allows for the examination of particular regions, whilst maintaining the study of connected works, I have decided to demarcate the transatlantic area in the late 18^th – early 19^th centuries as my subject focus. Whilst a specific question still eludes me, my chosen area of study is the connection of Enlightenment philosophy within the American and French Revolutions. The subject offers countless possibilities which, whilst making choosing a specific question difficult, ensures that whatever I do choose will have plenty of room for exploration.

Another layer to my project is the micro-historical/biographical approach which it will take. Life histories help us to recognise the different streams that an individual has been in, allowing for greater scope in making connections and uncovering flows. Tracing the flow of immaterial items such as ideas is particularly challenging as they do not move in a cascade, rather they disseminate slowly, appropriated in different places at different paces, with the origin not always being easily attributed to one specific place.

To aid such difficulties, I have decided that I shall focus on a number of individuals that spanned the two events. Whilst I need to do much more research on this subject, the two immediate actors that come to mind are Thomas Paine, author of the revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense, and Thomas Jefferson, American Ambassador to France between 1785 – 1789, later becoming the third U.S. President in 1801. Officially, the American Revolution spanned 1765 – 1783, whilst the French Revolution occurred between 1789 and 1799. However, with the need to study the impact of ideas, the build up and aftermath of these events are also in the spotlight, providing a relatively large period of time that my project will incorporate. Once again, the specific examination of individuals will aid this project in providing focus across such an expansive time period, directing the essay away from a narrative re-telling of events and towards an analytically transnational perspective on the flow of Enlightenment philosophy between the American and French Revolutions.

In light of the direction that my project is taking, I have decided that my short essay will take a methodological format, outlining the benefits of connected histories alongside the study of the individual. Aided by the sound example of connected history under Subrahmanyam, and Maya Jasanoff’s Liberty’s Exiles regarding biographical history, my short essay should provide a clear insight into the potential of casting such a perspective on what are two very similar occurrences in the late 18^th century.

Andrade Tonio’s article was an interesting start to understanding the complexities of cultural exchange in a local context. In the beginning, he emphasizes the importance of small human dramas that underlie historical events that seem significant. He discusses how history writing like this has become scant, regardless of what it has to offer. This reading reminded me of a book I once read by Linda Colley called ‘Captives’. Colley uses primary sources such as diary entries and memoirs to understand the lives of Irish, Scottish and English men and women who lived their lives as captives in the colonies under the British empire. By uncovering these people’s lives, she answered the big question about the invincibility of the empire. This was useful to understand how local stories of people that could have been easily ignored explained the larger phenomenon of labour relations in the colonial context. It also re-evaluated the significance of the British empire.

Coming back to Andrade; the Chinese farmer’s account raised some crucial points that I think could be relevant for students of history. These include: 1) Sait becoming a prisoner on a Dutch ship was interesting in understanding the movement of individuals of different races across the colonies. 2)The two African boys referring to the Chinese as heathens provides a glimpse into how different racial groups perceived each other in the context of the 17th century. Although this could have just been a way of validating the Dutch officials’ ideas to win their trust. This reading could be contrasted or even collaborated with Sugata Bose’s article that we read last week. Bose tries to explain globalization and connectivity in a macro-historical context, whereas Andrade explains it in a micro spatial context. Taken together, these two texts can be used to understand the more extensive historical processes.

The other readings helped make sense of the first one. Another interesting point that caught my eye in Ghobrial’s reading is when he discusses nationalist historiography and how masses may not accept the overemphasis on global history as they do not want to view their nations/ cities as ‘messy dots’ that lack depth and do not have historical agency. Linden also brings this up differently when he questions whether the world outside the west would accept global history.

Honestly, I’m a bit lost. I feel like everyone has found their footing or starting to get a grasp on their long projects, or at least found an idea, whereas I have absolutely no idea. I really liked Morven’s ideas on her project proposal, especially the two ideas on Hernando Colon and Gian Vincenzo Pinelli. I think her approach is very clever, taking on Tonio Andrade’s perspective of a series of micro-histories. I may follow a similar approach as I thought ‘A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory’ was a very intriguing article.

However, the extent to which something is considered ‘micro’ can be a bit lost on me, as I find it difficult to assess what can be considered an ‘anecdote’ or what can be considered as ‘history’. When taking Konrad Lawson’s module last semester MO3055: The History of History of East Asia, we differentiated what an anecdote meant and what history meant, but can these differentiations be applied in micro-history?

Perhaps I could even take a different approach, rather than approaching the essay like Andrade did. I could focus on one aspect or person and look at the different effects and contexts globally. For example, taking from my other module this semester (MO3524, Popular Music, Culture and Society: The United States and Britain 1955-80), I could focus on the effects of Rock ‘n’ Roll (or specifically Elvis Presley) in global contexts, is there a difference between how rock n roll affected different areas in Asia compared to the US?

Or something completely different such as discussing the Opium Wars and its shared history and different perspectives from China and the UK. Shared histories deeply interest me, such as studying the different points of views from Japan and China on the Nanjing Massacre.

I desperately need guidance. Wow.

Having studied transnational history for 3 weeks now, I believe that I have a (hopefully!) interesting starting point for my project. By far my favourite module so far has been MO3052- the history of the library. It might not seem like much at first thought, but this module opened my eyes to the influence of books and libraries on the lives of their users, and our research was certainly global. When thinking about a possible project, combined with the reading this week on micro-transnational histories, I remembered the individual book collectors we studied. So, here are a couple of ideas as to where my project could go…

Hernando Colon, the son of Christopher Columbus, amassed a library of over 10,000 books and 3,000 prints before his death in 1539. Since this amount of books were far more than Hernando could ever read, we see that books were symbols of wealth, and in Colon’s case also symbols of travel and culture. Very helpfully for us, Colon inscribed in every book the price he paid, and the circumstances around the purchase. Here we have an example of the travel links of books during the 16th century, as Colon created a system of contact between six major cities of book production- Rome, Venice, Nurnberg, Antwerp, Paris, Lyon. He made four European trips, which was a great amount in the 16th century, and his library became a home for scholars travelling far and wide. Perhaps I could take this actor and discuss the circumstances around his travels, and the wider social picture his collection is evidence of.

Gian Vincenzo Pinelli provides an insight into the fragility of book collections. Just like other determined Italian intellectuals, Pinelli’s goal was to keep up to date with the best in contemporary learning, and he went to great extent to obtain Protestant works during the counter-reformation. Just like many elite collectors, Pinelli wished his book collection to survive long after himself. However, no book collection is as important to anyone as it is to its owner. First a servant plundered the collection, then the government deemed much of it sensitive information so it fell victim to confiscation. The nephew Pinelli had left the library to died 14 moths after Pirelli, and his desire to publish the library as a memorial to his uncle died with him. Pirates attacked ships containing the books and threw them overboard looking for greater treasures. Of 33 chests, 22 were recovered. Here is a collection which has a story in itself. Why did Pinelli choose the books he did, and what does this show us? Who came and read in his library? Where did so many of the lost books end up? All of these are very hard to answer, but a history which focused on Pinelli’s motivations might expose some of the wider themes of the time. 

Right now it seems that the direction of my project is one focusing on the individual. However, the books themselves as commodities are also crucial. So, how to integrate these two? I am yet to encounter an actor who’s collection was necessarily global, but I am wary to focus only on the European. Perhaps I should focus in even further, and find an individual scribe who’s books travelled Europe, or a middle-class citizen who collected books. Wendy Kozol in the AHR conversation put the point across that, 

“the most effective transnational historical studies are those that examine how cultural practices and ideologies shape, constrain, or enable the economic, social, and political conditions in which people and goods circulate within local, regional, and global locales”

Wendy Kozol in Christopher A. Bayly et al., ‘AHR Conversation: On Transnational History’, American Historical Review 111/5 (2006), 1441-1464, here: 1451.  

This seems like a lot to integrate into a project, but perhaps I should start with a cultural practise or ideology. The first which comes to mind is the use of books to strengthen imperial rule at home and in the colonies. In Germany, indoctrination of the unassuming masses was undertaken by political parties in the lead up to the first world war. Colonial exploration generated a market for travel and war tales, as Pygmies and other human ‘curiosities’ excited interest among the working classes. There was a cultivation of a more informed public, but the masking of colonialist literature as more scientific does not displace its ideological function.

During the Second World War, ghetto libraries were erected to ensure the dissemination of knowledge. One great resource is Warsaw’s secret archive of the ghetto. This was organised though assembling diaries and other writings, buried just before the Warsaw uprising. Over 35,000 documents were recovered, comprising of poems, food stamps, diary entries, and photographs. Similarly, British mass observation began in 1937, and encouraged people to write diaries. This history from below could provide a great starting point for a project. 

In the colonies, books were used to strengthen claim to rule. In the Netherlands’ rule of the East Indies, the material inside new public libraries was designed to indoctrinate western ideals. Novels undermined Javanese tradition, instilling colonial values of efficiency and self-reliance. However, even though readers were veered towards these materials, they steered away, favouring the Malay thrillers. The libraries also became gathering spots for young nationalists. Thus, what came with the colonial library was the the tools needed to explore the other Western concepts of independence and egalitarianism. One reason for the eventual call for the end to the culture system was the publishing of the novel Max Havelaar in 1860, which described the miseries resulting from Java’s transformation. Bayly calls for a history of ideas which “transcends the elite-subaltern divide”. I agree, we need to move away from grand narratives of domination, but we can recognise that “even in the world of literature… there were power and victims, dominances and exclusions”.

Leading on from Max Havelaar, perhaps I could take, as Milinda suggested, an individual book and write its transnational history. This could be an interesting point of view, as travel links made it increasingly possible for books to be read and interpreted differently across the globe. 

Perhaps I could take the idea of libraries in a decade or a year, looking at how they differed across the globe and how each community and individual used the books inside them as means to different ends. Take 15th century contrasts between Mughal India, for example, where the literary culture was centralised around the imperial court, and nothing like the open market in Europe. Contrastingly, China’s system was much more secular, and had access to printing technology. However, unlike in Europe, it was not popular for centuries since there was simply a different market.

So, I suppose the main question I have going forward after this big word splurge is ‘how can I do transnational history?’ What do I include? What do I omit? What perspective do I take? How do I point to themes and nations without being dogmatic? Going back to the AHR conversation, I think that my focus must be on the desire to break out of the nation state as being the main category of analysis. I do not think that my analysis has to be entirely global and avoiding these nations altogether, however they should merely be used as bases. I hope to integrate this viewpoint, and others, into my project, and will no doubt be helped by our discussion of the micro and the transnational this week. 

Following Bernhard’s solid endorsement of Pierre – Yves Saunier’s Transnational History, I endeavoured to find a cheap second-hand copy online. Through Saunier’s style of writing, a combination of this text with many of the case studies that I have read has allowed me to develop an understanding towards how historians compose a transnational history. A fundamental point that has resided with me is that Saunier believes the term ‘transnational history’ is divisive, preferring the phrase ‘history in a transnational perspective’ as it much more accurate and reflective of the field’s intentions.

The text is self-described by the author as ‘a guide, the validity of which is conditional on the rapid change of the landscape it purports to describe’, evidence of just how liquid and malleable the discipline of transnational history is. In the early stages of my project topic selection, it is interesting, albeit very difficult, to come to terms with the fact that ideas, my chosen subject, refuses the bounds of a nation. Rather than looking at the manner in which a nation affected the Enlightenment Philosophy, transnational history reverts this perspective to one wherein it is important to understand the effects of the Enlightenment Philosophy itself. The process of ‘methodological nationalism’ has skewed the outlook of historians towards viewing each national state as the natural form of society and the basis of historiography, making it incredibly difficult to separate the flow of ideas from national boundaries. Saunier affirms that it is vital to remember however, that transnational history does not supersede but enhances the capacity of national historiography by adding the history of entanglements between countries.

The three main issues of transnational history are:

1. Historicisation of contracts between nations, understanding how exchanges fluctuated and the changing levels of exchange, integration and disintegration

2. Acknowledging and assessing foreign contributions to domestic features within nations and the projection of domestic features into the foreign

3. Understanding the trends, patterns, organisations and individuals that live between these entities

As such, Saunier has opened my eyes to the process of transnational history writing, especially due to his river analogy that breaks down the method five stages:

1. Know your riverbed

2. Demarcate a catchment area

3. Identify your tributaries

4. Where there are slopes, there are flows

5. Pin the blame on regime makers

Viewing the project ahead from this five – step process has allowed me to understand what it is that I have to do, as well as the manner in which I will go about it. With reference to the short essay, things remain a bit murkier. Understanding ‘connected history’ as specific confrontations between different nations and empires has demystified the field considerably. However, fully grasping the difference between connected and comparative histories, where comparison is a topic of study in transnational history, rather than a tool for the study of topics, is something that I need to read more on. My task ahead is reading the 1928 article on ‘comparative history’ by March Bloch to aid this understanding…

I’ve always been fascinated by Welsh history but have yet had an opportunity to really go into depth into the subject due to school curriculums being ‘British-centric’ with only scarce details related to Wales. I’m always amazed when I come across any reference to Wales when I’m abroad as no one ever seems to know about it. For example, at a Museum at Cape Point in South Africa, there were details of ships (and shipwrecks) that had come all the way from Cardiff round the coast. It made me wonder what on earth they were doing so far from home. But now I realise that there are many transnational links between Wales and the wider world. 

After reading Arndrade’s ‘A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord’ article, I feel there would be a lot of promise in applying a ‘micro-transnational approach’ for my larger project to a Welsh individual. This article really opened my eyes to the ways in which how useful using a micro historical approach can be used to tell stories that demonstrate the interconnectedness of the world even at the scale of the individual. Hence, the perspective of the individual can reveal lots to us about how they viewed the world and their place within a global context.

There is no shortage of Welsh individuals that could be followed: Orientalists such as Sir William Jones; Missionaries such as Dr Griffith Griffith and Thomas Jones; Michael Jones, the leader of the movement which set up a Welsh speaking colony in Patagonia; and Captain John Jones who was one of the celebrated ‘Cape Horners’ who sailed from Swansea around the tip of south America to Chile, as well as taking part in the Californian gold rush, skirmishes with native Americans and close encounters with grizzly bears. 

Hence, there are ample ways in which I can use a ‘micro-transnational’ approach using the perspective of a Welsh person. It could also be interesting to see how this perspective fits into the wider perspective of the British empire and imperialism.  

When I was first introduced to the field of micro history last year in MI2001, I found the concept fascinating and I took great pleasure in reading Natalie Zemon Davis’ The Return of Martin Guerre. Once again, this past week, I found myself enthralled in our readings on the connections between micro history and global history. Up until this point, I had failed to see the connections between the two approaches to writing history. Now it seems somewhat obvious that these two approaches are complementary, and when used in conjunction with each other, a history can be produced which pays attention to the individual threads which make up the fabric of a historical narrative. The inclusion of micro-historical perspectives can greatly enhance the possibilities of exploration offered by global history, as Christian De Vito and Anne Gerritsen’s concept of “micro-spatial history” demonstrates. Perhaps micro history holds authors more accountable to the people, ideas, and spaces they seek to shed light on. As John-Paul A. Ghobrial argues – “micro-historical methods can offer what Francesca Trivellato has called a ‘healthy dose of critical self-reflexivity into the practice of global history.” 

While I agree with Ghobrial’s sentiments, I think that micro history can have even more profound outcomes in that it allows historians to include a great deal of empathy and human connection in their writing. By telling the story of a single human being or a specific object, a time and place that is geographically and chronologically distinct from the one the reader occupies can be transplanted into the realm of the familiar. While reading Tonia Andrade’s piece, “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys; and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory”, I found myself enthralled in the text, almost as if I were reading a novel centered around the life of this Chinese farmer named Sait. The tragic story of this man’s death not only gave me a window into life in the Dutch colony of Taiwan in 1661, but it also allowed me to understand the perspectives offered by different segments of the population living there and gave me the opportunity to consider some of the reasons why the Dutch commanders failed to defeat the Chinese forced led by Koxinga. This work called upon me to consider the common humanity shared between me and this Chinese farmer, and certain details, such as the descriptions of Koxinga’s torture tactics really stuck with me. I think a micro historical approach, in addition to contributing valuable insights into the field of global history, might be very effective in piquing the wider public’ interest in historical studies. 

Turning now to my project, I think I want to write on something relating to the adoption of children across international borders or the differences between foster care systems worldwide and how this relates to varying cultural practices. In either case, I hope to incorporate a microhistorical perspective so that the individuals – the children, adoptive parents, foster parents, or whatever it ends up being about – shine through in my final project. However, Hannah’s recent blog post weighs heavy on my mind and I wonder if I will be able to do justice to these individuals as a American woman who only speaks english and has no personal experience in the realms of surrogacy, adoption or foster care. My knowledge on these subjects is restricted to research I did in high school on the American foster care system, focused primarily on the issues inherent in this national system. In any case, I hope these factors won’t be enough to stop me from creating a project which allows readers to see into a foreign place and time which is not theirs, just as Andrade’s piece did for me this week. 

When coming up for a project to explore within this module I had a few ideas. For instance, I wanted to explore the reasoning behind international media reaction to Bashar al-Assad’s regime’s use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War varying from country to country. When the first attacks were reported by American media outlets in 2012, many other media sources, for instance in South Asia and Central Europe, were very sceptical of the validity of American sources. To explore why some national medias supported American claims and why others questioned them was something I wanted to do because this cynicism was not coming from enemies of America, and nor was it coming from nations which supported Assad’s regime. However, this would have required lengthy ontological questions asking what lies at the foundations of “truth” and “power” and thus would better be written as a question in the field of IR. A few other questions also arose, for instance regarding why certain countries have similar single-citizenship policies, or how a single city in Pakistan has been able to monopolise the world’s football market, supplying something around 80% of the world’s footballs. Other topics that interested me included the role which remittances from America and the UK play in the Jamaican economy, or how natalist politics became popularised throughout the world in the 1920s. However, the topic I am currently looking at exploring is one that I have toyed with for a long time.

                        I am into all varieties of music, and I genuinely mean that. If it has a beat and a rhythm, I’ll happily “dance” (awkwardly sway) to it. However, in my earlier teen years I was really drawn to metal and alternative rock music. I burrowed deeper into the rabbit-hole as my tastes became more extreme and I got thoroughly stuck into some of the heavier Thrash and Death metal bands. Despite this, I could never bring myself to listen to Black metal. I despised the style of vocals (as opposed to a guttural growl as you would find in Death metal, Black metal singers tend to screech or employ flamboyantly emotional screaming which is incredibly harsh on the ears), the guitars were too high pitched, and the recording quality was generally awful (a stylistic choice from a lot of bands in an attempt to remain “hardcore” and “underground”). Also, they wear face-paint and massive needles on leather straps on their arms, which… just isn’t very cool. It was only when I got into more atmospheric music genres such as shoegaze, trance, or even some classical, that I began to appreciate the aspects of Black metal that draw so many people. When you attend a Black metal gig you don’t tend to see many people moshing. Rather, these people dressed in the most intimidating clothing they could find, really just stand about calmly listening to the band in a reflective mood, and if the purists are satisfied that the band was “good” enough then they might clap slightly at the end of the show. The reason these people don’t dance to the music they listen to is because its really too atmospheric to do so. “Sound-walling” is a technique used in many genres, but in Black metal it is almost ubiquitous, with the rapid riffs from the heavily distorted guitars designed to overwhelm the listener. The music’s intention is for the sound to sonically wash over the audience. It is a genre which explores themes of individualism, depression (probably the biggest, and occasionally a very problematic, theme in the genre), and anger, which fit well because of the sound’s ability to encourage reflection (for some people). It is a wonderfully diverse sound and that is why there is a vibrant and growing wave of shoegaze/Black metal bands collaborating with DJs and electro-pop musicians (particularly in France). That being said, I must now address huge problems within the Black metal music scene and why I have chosen to explore it.

                        To briefly condense the history of Black metal, I would say that it began as a form of Thrash metal with the English band, Venom (who coined the term “Black Metal” in their sophomore release) in the early 1980s with themes of Satanism and Anti-Christianity. As an aside, an Anglican priest attempted to convince a court to ban their records for containing subliminal messaging designed to turn teenagers into Satan-worshippers, which the band refuted because, with songs titled In League with Satan and Leave Me In Hell, they weren’t being particularly subliminal with the messaging. Venom’s style of music spread across Europe throughout the 1980s with bands such as Sweden’s Bathory and Switzerland’s Celtic Frost defining the sound of this underground scene, as well as its themes as a bunch of teenagers playing Anti-Christian music ironically to annoy their parents as well as their local community’s religious leaders. This changed in the early 1990s in Norway. A band called Mayhem defined what the modern genre’s sound is, but they also lent to the genre their brand of bigotry. As well as cassette tapes, they would also spread manifestos encouraging Europeans to return to Pre-Christian Paganism as a way to counter 1,000 years of globalisation and cosmopolitanism which had made the European man “effeminate”. Most members of the band and their inner circle had either been arrested for burning down churches (one member was convicted of arsons on at least three churches) and homophobic/racist attacks on others, or had been murdered by one of the other members of the band by 1993. The vile nature of the band’s membership only served to further popularise their music and, to a lesser but still troubling extent, their political messages.

                        One reason why I want to explore the transnational influence of Mayhem is because I believe there is a gap in current historical knowledge. It has become ubiquitous in political studies to refer to the late-1990s and early-2000s in terms of a nationalistic backlash, that in the Post-Cold War world the lack of choice in terms of ideological identity resulted in a “reversion” to national identity as the primary form of self-identification and group-formation. Hence, we have 20-30 years of ethnic conflict, religious extremism, and anti-globalisation movements around the world. Now this is of course a very overgeneralised view of Post-Soviet world history, but works such as Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations (1996) popularised this current of discourse. A big issue with this paradigm is that it holds a “West/the Rest” conception at its centre. “It’s the rest of the world: Muslims, Slavic, Asian, African, and South American peoples who are reacting badly to globalisation, not the west” is the sort of logic shown by adherents to this kind of discourse. Well, I would like to point out that anti-globalist movements are global, and the Black metal scene in the early 1990s is a perfect example of this within Europe and North America. There are other debates which can be benefited by introducing analysis of the Black metal music scene, such as debates revolving around the nature of stress, anxiety, and depression in modern society. Well, you have right in front of you a sub-genre of Black metal (called DSBM) dedicated to exploring such themes which is followed by millions (not many millions, but still millions) of, primarily young and European, people across the world, and the inclusion of this human experience as an historical fact would add an interesting avenue of exploration for any modern historian.

                        Following this exploration of what the inclusion of Black metal in history can provide for these questions of modern societal stress and anti-globalism, I would also be interested in focusing upon where modern Black metal music in Eastern Europe is now, and this is the broadly transnational experience that I may analyse as my term project. On one level, there are dozens of bands who tour various countries in Eastern Europe as part of a far-right and bigoted movement with members of their various organisations contributing to protests in the Ukraine, as well as shockingly travelling overseas to appear at pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and far-right rallies in the USA. On the other hand, you have some other bands who explore themes which could be likened to 19^th Century Romanticist music, who make records around the concepts of national-heroes or of times of national struggle, but who reject the far-right minority within the genre. To take Ukraine as an example, Drudkh, who have millions of streams on Spotify (Spotify was only expanded to Ukraine in late-July 2020, so the absolute majority of these have come from overseas listeners, which means it is easy to say that while still “underground”, they are one of the more popular Black metal bands in Europe), conceptualised their 2005 album around the 19^th Century poet Taras Shevchenko, and recent political history has only further encouraged their music to become Romanticist around Ukrainian national figures who opposed the historical inclusion of Ukraine in the Russian Empire. I suppose the question is, in rough general terms, “how does Black metal music lend itself to nationalism/anti-globalism in Eastern Europe?”

                        Apologies for the mini-essay, but I’ve been thinking about what I could do my project on for a while now and rambling could help. I also felt like I had to provide a reasonable amount of context given the niche nature of the subject. Hope anyone who made it to the end found this relatively interesting :).